So I started simply, running out of drive space for stuff on my laptop. So I bought a simple mini pc loaded batocera onto it and moved all my retro games across.
It’s a matter of months it’s multiplied. I have a reteo mini pc a home automation mini pc. My router. My gaming laptop. My families laptops and tablets. And a thinkcentre v520 on the way to become a jellyfin server. How do I stop it all breeding 🤣
Anyway. Jokes aside I’m starting to amass a few bits of hardware with plans for more in the future. Any more experienced people have any advice for me as I get started. Or things you wish you had known sooner
Current plans are to add in a router and maybe a network switch as my ISP provided one won’t let me port forward properly and I only have 1 port left open on it anyway.
And I’m looking at building a media centre in my front room so I’ll probably end up building one of the cupboards big enough to hold all the equipment bar the router.
How do I stop it all breeding 🤣
Sorry man. You’ve got the virus now.
Advice: you probably don’t need a bunch of single-purpose servers running up your power bill. Read up on containerisation and run as much stuff as you can in containers, on a single server. Docker and Proxmox will be your new best friends. You will have difficulty overtaxing a reasonably modern CPU, and RAM is (relatively) cheap.
Let’s take your portable devices out of the mix, and focus on everything else.
ISP modem. Router. Switch. V520 for your media server.
Doesn’t sound like too much in the way of equipment.
My modem, router, 16-port switch, and a USFF PC take up about 10 x 10 x 6" of combined space. I have a WiFi access point elsewhere.
What other equipment do you need to contend with?